East El Paso Menchie's store featured on CBS-TV's 'Undercover Boss' this Friday

Jenni Lutz, a team member at the Menchie's frozen yogurt shop at 1355 George Dieter will appear in Friday's "Undercover Boss" episode on CBS with Menchie's CEO Amit Kleinberger, pictured incognito in a chalk drawing at right. Kleinberger showed up at the East El Paso shop dressed as a team member last August. (Rudy Gutierrez / El Paso Times)

Amit Kleinberger, CEO of Menchie's Frozen Yogurt as he will appear in the Friday night episode of Undercover Boss. (Special to the Times)

An El Paso Menchie's frozen yogurt shop will be featured in an episode of CBS-TV's "Undercover Boss" show this Friday.

Amit Kleinberger, 33, chief executive officer of the Los Angeles-based chain with about 350 locations, donned a green Menchie's shirt and worked in the El Paso store, at 1355 George Dieter at Rojas, and three other locations around the country during the summer for the TV show where company CEOs disguise themselves and work in the trenches with employees.

"El Paso is the highest performing (Menchie's) market in Texas (with about 20 locations) and I wanted to see what makes it so high performing," Kleinberger said in a telephone interview Monday. "I learned the store is top performing because of the quality of the customer experience it gives at that location."

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Vic Kolenc

Jaya Vaswani, who owns the two Menchie's franchised stores in El Paso with her parents and her husband Vijay Vaswani, said a TV producer called them and asked to film in their stores for some unspecified show. The producer gave no other details, she said. They were told employees were filmed at 50 stores around the country, she said.

The Vaswanis didn't find out more about what was going on until the night before Kleinberger came to El Paso. They had to be told because they know Kleinberger and would have blown his cover if they were in the store when he arrived, Vaswani reported. The couple actively manage their El Paso stores, so they are in them daily, she said.

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Jenni Lutz, 19, who's worked at the George Dieter store since it opened in February, will be one of the Menchie's employees featured in Friday's Undercover Boss episode, Vaswani said.

"Jenni has a very bubbly personality, and is always smiling," and customers often call to let the owners know how much they like her, Vaswani said.

Menchie's CEO Kleinberger said Lutz is a model employee.

"I rewarded Lutz for her performance. But you'll have to wait to see the show to find out what she gets," he said.

Vaswani said she and her family don't know what occurred during filming in their El Paso store.

"We won't know what happened until the show airs," she said.

"The most important thing is El Paso was filmed, and that is what is exciting about it," Vaswani said.

About 9 million people watch an Undercover Boss episode, CBS has told Menchie's officials.

Kleinberger said the experiences he had in stores while the TV episode was being filmed showed him how important it is to get out from his office in Los Angeles and visit stores. He said he wants to work in a store at least once a month.

"I saw several things in stores that we can do better and improve the overall performance," he said. Even top-performing stores, like those in El Paso, can be improved, he said.

As a result of his Undercover Boss experience, Kleinberger plans to revise Menchie's employee-recognition program, and continue to implement Menchie's "we make you smile" philosophy at all stores, according to a statement issued by the company.

The El Paso store is having a viewing party Friday for the public. It will begin at 5:30 p.m., with a performance by El Paso singer Isaac Tauaefa, a contestant on Fox-TV's "X Factor" show. Undercover Boss is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m., Friday, on KDBC, Channel 4 (Channel 3 on Time Warner Cable).